Paula Morgan

It is only two weeks until the exhibition launch with Glasgow Open House Art Festival, and we’ve been doing more than just hanging out. Tonight we met local ice cream parlor trio Harry’s Ice Cream and their amazing bunny costume. We are meeting a single mum first thing in the morning and then off to Reidvale Housing Association Allotments with STV Glasgow to shoot the local gardeners. The piece de resistance will be meeting the owner of Connie’s Bathrooms tomorrow afternoon. If you know Dennistoun you will know Connie’s amazing van collection with bathtubs, mannequins and rubber ducks dotted throughout the neighborhood.

It has been amazing to have had such a warm reception to the project. We are really coming into our stride and meeting so many wonderful people in the closing weeks of the projects first phase. We really are getting to know Dennistoun, and it keeps becoming even more colourful.

Pretty much this, my local launderette, the source of inspiration that sparked the entire project. I must have walked past it a hundred times, but I’d never been in. Partly because I’m too lazy to do my washing anywhere other than in the comfort of my own home, even though I crave the fluffiness that only a tumble dryer can provide.

For some reason it caught my eye one day a few months ago and got me thinking about how communities function. Everything is becoming much more insular, something that I don’t feel too comfortable with, I decided not to have a smart phone as an act of rebellion! I love meeting people and having conversations. It got me thinking that Dennistoun must be full of rich stories that I have never heard, but that inevitably make up the fabric of where I live.

These ideas are always formed in the shower. So, one morning during a very long, prune finger inducing one I came up with the project, to use washing lines as a way to engage with the community and hear as many stories as I could. But, I needed a photographer, and Eoin loved the idea. Through his artistic vision and passion for colour, I knew he could bring the project to life in a way that I couldn’t even yet imagine.

So here we are! 2 weeks to go and many more people to meet. A few very exciting shoots this week, anecdotes of which we’ll be sharing with you.

You can also keep up to date with us on Twitter @PaulaCreateStir // @eoin_carey and use the hashtag #washinglinesdennistoun to share your anecdotes with us. Funny photos of your washing would go down a treat!

The launch will take place on May 2nd// Whitehill Laundrette// All welcome.

Colour is one of the main building blocks on which my relationship to photography is based. It amazes me all the time because it can be found everywhere. It is inherent. Symbolic in its own way on many levels but fundamentally for me, colour always signposts me to people. Wherever the human species passes, we leave a trail of colour in our wake. Not always in a good way, but more often than not, in a surprising way.

In the last few weeks walking the drives and closes of Dennistoun, I have seen colour in more unexpected ways. In the forefront of my mind over the last while are questions of Dennistoun’s identity. On the surface I have been fascinated by the image of a changed landscape. There is visible disfunction in the area’s graffiti, litter and disused spaces. On a rainy day, Dennistoun can look grey. But look a little closer and there are signs that life is stable and vibrant. The little surprises of colour are all around and give a more profound flavour of the area than a birds eye view. But like all good things, you have to slow down to notice them.